Using exercise, nutrition, and supplementation to mitigate the effects of PCOS

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Starting over. Yes, so soon.

I listen to a lot of low carb propaganda. I enjoy listening to low carb propaganda, and nutrition research, and I have a twisted side of me that enjoys hearing about how we have not evolved to eat grains and how loads of fat and meat and veggies is the best way to eat and on and on....

The original name for this blog was 'Paleo for PCOS' because I was going to chronicle my experience with a strict 30 day paleo diet and write about how much better I feel not eating grains and keeping my carb intake low, and some big miraculous change was supposed to happen and guess what?

Not gonna happen.

And right now I'm just going to squash any murmurings about how long it takes for your body to adapt to burning fat for fuel instead of carbs, how you feel awful until it does, how you can feel 'so fabulous' eating low to no carbs, how grains contain addictive substances and I'm probably just experiencing withdrawal, how your body doesn't need carbs to function, how your body actually prefers to burn ketones instead of glucose....

I've heard it all. I even believe most of those things are true for a majority of folks. But for me? Not here, not now.

There is a disconnect between head knowledge and what my body is telling me. My body tells me that I feel best eating a small, reasonable portion of starchy food with meals, alongside a nice serving of protein and a generous serving of vegetables and some fat. I walk away feeling satisfied, I enjoy my meal more. I can lose weight eating (some types of) grains. I know because I have done it before.

My body also tells me that when I don't eat at least some starchy foods with meals I become bitchy, moody, depressed, and overly sensitive. I know this because in the last year I have tried to eliminate grains 3 times and twice I have become an obsessive, depressed, ready-to-snap-at-any-moment monster and the other time I got a bladder infection and my digestive tract hit the 'stop elimination' button.

Granted, my body is messed up. My unhealthy body has led to an unhealthy mind, which doesn't regulate my moods and hormones very well.

I know that I feel better with exercise, because last year when I was CF'ing, I felt awesome most of the time. That is, until I tried eliminating grains.

For now, I'm going to follow some very basic food rules which I will list in a later post. Rules which I know will allow me to stabilize my moods, even if I don't lose weight right away.

Then, I'm going to focus on creating a regular habit of varied exercise.

I will not get distracted by macronutrient ratios, flashy programming, how many calories I'm eating or improving my (insert WOD here) time.

I want to lay a rock solid nutritional foundation that allows me to feel like a stable person and develop healthy exercise habits.

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